Avago Technologies, a supplier of analog interface components for communications, industrial and consumer applications, announced a highly integrated GPS low noise amplifier (LNA) with high performance levels. The ALM-1712 effectively integrates a sophisticated GPS LNA and two FBAR filters. This results in a complete, compact and high-performance GPS RF front-end module that simplifies the design of a wide range of GPS applications.

Simultaneous GPS, and other location-based GPS services, requires a high level of receiver sensitivity. Avago’s ALM-1712 is a complete GPS RF front-end that delivers very low noise figures, high linearity and superior out-of-band rejection performance. By integrating a GPS LNA with pre and post high-rejection FBAR (film bulk acoustic resonator) filters, the high-performance ALM-1712 simplifies and shortens the RF design process, reduces component count and provides excellent RF performance levels that are critical in the use of GPS applications.

Avago’s highly integrated ALM-1712 is housed in a miniature 4.5 x 2.2 x 1.0 mm MCOB package, reducing PCB space by more 50 percent when compared to a discreet-only solution. The integration of FBAR filtering enables the ALM-1712 to reach more than 85 dBc of cell/PCS-band rejection levels. Additionally, the ALM-1712 effectively leverages Avago’s 0.5 um GaAs enhancement-mode PHEMT process to deliver a 1.7 dB noise figure, 13.5 dB gain and +5 dBm IIP3 (input third-order intercept point) at typical operating condition of 2.7 V and 8 mA. At low voltages down to 1.8 V, the module can still achieve very low noise figure and high linearity, which makes it very suitable for use in low-power GPS applications.

The ALM-1712 is designed for the 1.575 GHz frequency band, targeting handset GPS, recreational and in-vehicle GPS receiver and GPS antenna applications.